Understanding The Rollercoaster Of Results

Ever come into the office and are stumped as to why numbers look so good week over week or why numbers suddenly look down? Heavy excel work and pivot tables were sometimes required to find that core issue that caused the fluctuation but Google finally made it easier for advertisers.

During the summer of 2013, Google released a report, the Top Movers Report, to show which campaigns/ad groups saw the biggest changes in cost & clicks. This allows advertisers to get quick snapshots comparing two time periods and see what is up, what is down and the realized impact to the account. In February 2014 Google took the report one step further. They now show conversions, device type and even possible causes to the fluctuations. Did your conversions fall off for a once popular item/s or did product listing ad traffic spike causing numbers to fluctuate greatly? Was it a new promo or keyword that was added to the account? This report now houses it all.

This report can be accessed using the “Dimensions” tab in the Adwords UI. Once you choose your time ranges to compare, data will then begin to populate showing all the factors previously mentioned.

Once you know where this biggest changes are coming from you can begin to dissect that campaign, group of terms or even the landing page to determine what changes could have been made both on your end but also in the SERP & competitive landscape. This will allow advertisers to better understand the changes that are inevitable in AdWords advertising.